


there's a chance we could make it

by darkages (renaissance)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/darkages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was she really contemplating throwing away her principles to give up her maidenhead, lost in a forest in the depths of the Riverlands?</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's a chance we could make it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frontally (chlorrs)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorrs/gifts).



> I can't even believe I'm posting this. I'm so embarrassed.
> 
> Anyway, this is a birthday gift for my wonderful friend Leeni, who has been absolutely essential to my enjoyment of the whole J/B experience. I hope you enjoy this vague attempt at trope deconstruction!

Sometimes, when a brief spell of introspection came over her, Brienne of Tarth wondered what her life might have been like if she were not a Knight, or at the very least the pitiful aspirant that she had ended up becoming. More often than she might have liked, she thought about romance, and what her life might have been like if she had stayed on Tarth and married and borne children. She might have been happy, but she would not have found love.

Love had struck her blindly in the night when she had least expected it, twice now, and she had fallen victim to its prying claws, letting it consume her until its skin became her armour and its juices became her blood. It was love that had pushed her forwards as she seized her unique opportunity to join King Renly’s Kingsguard, and it was love that blinded her now to the faults of a man she had once thought unforgivable. For him, she had broken oaths. For him, she had killed someone dear to her. For him, she remained reticent and willed that he would never find about her love for him, because she knew he loved another. So in silence she bore his sword and undertook his quest.

She had never believed that the Seven had much of a plan for her, yet there was some fate that had now brought them together again on the near-futile search for Sansa Stark. Would that she had more than Ser Hyle and her squire Podrick to act as a shield between herself and the damnable man—Jaime Lannister was a distraction, and he seemed to delight in placing himself far too close to her than was seemly.

The worst part was that she could not bring herself to push him away.

Their horses ambled slowly through the dying daylight, coming eventually upon a small grove which Jaime loudly deemed suitable as a camping ground for the night.

“Would you possibly be able to speak any louder?” Hunt asked through clenched teeth.

“Why, any louder and we’d doubtless attract the attention of outlaws,” Jaime replied, flashing Hyle a grin as though that would make up for his bold rejection of the sarcastic insult.

“I am sick of this man’s company,” Hyle said, dismounting and turning his attention to Brienne. “Come, let’s see if there’s any game in this corner of the woods for our dinner.”

Brienne opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by Jaime gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “Brienne is still recovering from her injuries. I will stay here and tend to her wounds; you can take Pod.”

Podrick and Brienne exchanged a glance, uncomfortable by being used as bargaining pieces in whatever extended feud existed between these two men, who had only met one another so recently.

“Fine,” Hyle spat. “Come on, Podrick. Let’s leave these two alone.” He turned on his heel and Podrick shot one last desperate look at Brienne before following Hunt.

“Don’t forget to bring some firewood!” Jaime called after them, his voice singing out through the trees.

Hyle had disappeared among the thicket by then, but Brienne could hear him shouting back something about Lannister “shoving it up his arse”.

“Jaime,” Brienne said quietly, “my wounds are almost healed.”

“A shameful excuse to keep you by my side, I’m afraid.”

Brienne backed away from him slightly. “Why would you wish to keep me near?”

He gave a small smile. “Have you not worked it out yet?"

"Evidently I have not," she snapped, unsure as to why this instance of willful ambiguity made her so angry, when she had let it pass by her so many times. "Tell me, Ser Jaime, why you are keeping me at our campsite, as though you need to take care of me as though I were a child!"

"Is that truly what you think?" he asked, louder than he had spoken before.

"What else am I to presume? That when I am too long in Ser Hyle's company you become envious?"

Jaime staggered at her words as though she had struck him with a slap. "Actually, yes!" he said, loud enough that certainly any outlaws in the vicinity would be well on their way to rob and hang them. "He proposes marriage to you every day and speaks as if you have already accepted him! Do you not expect me to be envious?"

"I do not understand you!" Brienne said, running a hand through her hair. "Why would you envy a man who fancies himself married to an ugly woman who looks closer to man or beast?"

"Because if I could, I would marry you myself!"

Brienne had never heard such quiet in her life as the buzzing emptiness that filled the forest after Jaime had stopped shouting. It lasted only a few seconds before Jaime’s heavy breathing entered her ears, and she saw only his frown, and his brows pinched together in confusion.

“Why?” she said again, her voice softer.

He shook his head. “I _want_ you, Brienne. I have never wanted anything—or any _one_ —so much in my life.”

“Surely you jest,” she whispered, hardly wishing to believe his words. That love might have been kind to her was something she could not believe.

In response, Jaime walked towards her and clasped his hand on her arm. “Can I kiss you?” he asked.

Brienne was taken aback by his openness. She remembered Ser Owen Inchfield—at Bitterbridge, which seemed so long ago—forcing his mouth towards her, and she remembered the way his leather jerkin felt beneath her hands as she pushed him backwards into a fire before he could do anything. This was nothing like that. This was Ser Jaime being polite for perhaps the first time in his life, and asking her permission.

Swallowing, she nodded.

He leant forwards, his hand still closed around her arm, and pressed his lips to hers. It was feather-light at first, a simple union of skin, but Brienne felt a chill through her entire body. His lips were as dry and chapped as hers, after so many days in the open air, and yet there was an undeniable softness to the touch. And when he leant in for a second kiss, she was more prepared, and let her right hand drift to his hip as she returned the pressure.

It was not long before Jaime stepped closer, seeking perhaps to minimise the distance between their bodies, and his lips parted. Brienne forced herself not to flinch at the wetness of his tongue on her lips. She was no fool—she knew that men and women kissed with more than just their lips—and yet she had no idea how to go about doing it. She let her jaw hang open slightly, and Jaime took the cue to slide his tongue into her mouth.

Brienne could not help the giggle that escaped her.

“Do you find this amusing?” he asked, one eyebrow raised and the hint of a smile on his face. “Perhaps it is you who jests.”

“No, I simply—it was a strange sensation, that is all,” she stammered.

“Brienne.” Jaime pulled back and looked her in the eyes. “I want you.”

“You mentioned as much,” she said quietly.

“And yet you do not understand. I _want_ you.”

Brienne frowned, an inversion of his infuriating smile, and pondered the meaning of his— _oh_. “You—”

“If you would have me,” he amended hastily.

There had always been moments in Brienne’s life when she had to make the choice between the honourable, dignified option, and the option that left her looking a fool but ultimately all the better for it. She had made that choice when she had run off to fight for Renly instead of staying on Tarth, and she had thought that she would never be happier. This seemed to be another situation where she would have to make such a choice. She could always say no to Jaime, and keep her virtue intact in the case that she ever returned to Tarth and married, as she was expected to do, but the kingdom was in the middle of a war and Winter was ravaging the lands, and she doubted that she would ever see her home again. She would be more a fool to deny that this was not what she wanted. Was she really contemplating throwing away her principles to give up her maidenhead, lost in a forest in the depths of the Riverlands?

She found herself thinking, most uncharacteristically, that yes, she would. If she were to die in battle, or to be taken by the cold, she would not want to regret that she had not done this one thing for _herself_.

“I would have you,” she said at last, the words barely escaping her mouth.

It was worth it, perhaps only for the delight writ on Jaime’s face. “Here, now?” he asked.

“Now,” she agreed.

Jaime kissed her again, more passionately than before, and this time she was almost even ready for the tongue in her mouth, and barely laughed at all. He removed his hand from her arm and pushed it under her coat and her shirt, making contact with her skin. Brienne thought she might faint then and there, but he continued, slipping his fingers beneath the top of her britches.

“Is this alright?” he asked.

Brienne made a noise of assent, moving to do the same. She thought that she might have the advantage of dexterity, given that she did in fact have two hands, but the moment she touched his skin, Jaime pulled away.

“What—”

“Your hands,” he said quickly, “are _frozen_.”

“Oh,” Brienne said, looking helplessly at her palms. “Should I not… ?”

For the first time since they had met, Jaime seemed at a loss for words. “Perhaps we ought to get to the point,” he said jokingly.

“Of course,” Brienne said.

Jaime began to unlace his britches, and Brienne bit her lip and shut her eyes. She wasn’t sure that she was quite prepared for this. And yet they had come this far—she could hardly back out. Slowly, she opened her eyes, and she gasped.

She’d seen them before. She’d seen boys swimming nude in the waters around Tarth, and she’d seen drunk men pissing behind the tents in Renly’s camp. She’d even glimpsed Jaime’s before, in the baths at Harrenhal, although she had told herself that she was definitely not going to look. But this was different. This carried an intimacy that she’d never experienced before, and it scared her more than any enemy with a sword ever had.

“Gods, it’s cold!” Jaime looked almost embarrassed. “It’s not, uh—I’m still half-hard,” he admitted, as though Brienne could tell the difference. “I may need some help with this.”

She glanced between his face and his—oh _Gods_ —his _penis_. He was asking her to _touch it_.

“My hands, uh—”

“Cold,” he said. “I know. Trust me, this will warm them up.”

Tentatively, she reached forward and prodded it with a finger. It seemed to jump at the contact, twitching slightly.

“I didn’t know that they did that,” she whispered, unsure whether she ought to be sounding amused or awed.

“They can do much more,” Jaime said, and she heard a flirtatiousness in his voice that suggested raised eyebrows, although she kept her eyes fixed on his crotch. “Wrap your fingers around it.”

Brienne did as she was instructed, and felt it grow even thicker in her grasp. “Do I, uh, do I pull on it?”

Jaime laughed. “More or less. I can’t—we can’t do it if it’s not fully hard.”

“I see,” she said, although she didn’t really see. But she began to move her hand up and down, until she felt a warm wetness slide down one of her fingers, and came to a halt. “Is that—”

“It’s fine,” Jaime said reassuringly. “This isn’t the main event, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Brienne looked up from her hand and fixed him with a stare. Yes, she was perfectly aware what an orgasm looked like—at least she knew from her own personal experimentation, and was happy to extrapolate that to the male case—and did not need to be patronised. But no-one had warned her about the leaking.

Jaime just laughed at her. “You know, I think I’m hard enough now to—”

Brienne nodded. “We should—we can’t do this standing without support, can we?”

“Would you rather lie down on all the twigs and leaves?” he asked.

“Against a tree,” she suggested, scarce able to believe that the words were leaving her mouth.

They maneuvered themselves, Brienne’s hand still awkwardly gripping Jaime’s member, so that her back was pressed against the nearest tree.

“Are you ready?” Jaime asked, and she noticed suddenly that his breathing was more shallow before, and marvelled that she could possibly have inspired this. She nodded.

Jaime reached forward and began to unlace her britches with his hand. Brienne shifted slightly, trying to make it easier for him, but a knot in the tree chose that moment to dig sharply into her back.

She sucked in her breath, biting down on her bottom lip.

“Brienne—”

“Just the tree, just—”

But she could not continue, because Jaime’s hand had somehow found its way beneath her smallclothes. Her eyes wide open, she let out a small gasp. “Is that alright?” he asked, bringing his head forward to rest in the crook of her neck.

There was no way he expected her to be able to reply, not when he was distracting her so. He rested his stump against the tree, and Brienne noticed that he winced slightly as the raw skin made contact with the bark. But his hardness was pressed into her thigh, and his hand slipped at an uncomfortable angle into her smallclothes, so his stump could hardly have been giving him that much trouble.

“You’re so wet,” he said, and Brienne felt like she was supposed to be taking it as a compliment, but it just made her feel a bit silly. She was backed up against a rough-barked tree in the middle of nowhere with a finger pressed into her most sensitive area, and she was about to have sex with Jaime Lannister.

So she laughed.

After a moment of confusion in his eyes, Jaime laughed too, and before long both of them stood there, awkwardly twisted together against the tree, laughing in the face of everything they’d faced together, and how it had somehow led to this.

“Do you want me to—”

Jaime looked down, and then back at Brienne, and she smiled at him. She smiled as she had not allowed herself to smile in a very long time. She opened her mouth, and was about to say “yes”, when—

“ _Seven hells_!”

Brienne didn’t turn her head—Ser Hyle’s voice was one she recognised all too well.

“Brienne,” Jaime hissed, “you’re—you’re holding on a bit _too_ tight.”

With a sudden jolt of realisation, Brienne pulled her hand away from Jaime, and he did the same, and they both began to re-tie the laces on their respective britches. She felt a blush warm on her cheeks, and after she had stared at the ground in shame for long enough, she turned to face Hyle, and—oh Gods, Pod stood there beside him, as pale as if he had seen a ghost, with a pile of firewood dropped at his feet and his mouth hanging open.

“I am so sorry,” she began. “I did not mean to—”

“Yes, you did,” Hyle snapped. “Just make sure that it doesn’t happen in front of the boy again.”

Hyle steered Pod away towards the clearing where they would set up camp. “Let’s get a fire started,” Jaime said, clearly eager to avoid any further discussion of what had just happened.

Brienne stood rooted to the spot, still in shock. She could not believe her idiocy! There was a young, impressionable boy travelling with them, not to mention a man who was eager for her hand in marriage, for some twisted reason, and there was the thought of her inheritance, and her duty to Tarth. It had been a bad decision, and what worried her the most was that it was a bad decision that she was like to make again, all for the sake of a misguided love that would not leave her.

But when Jaime took her aside later that evening and whispered that they might try again some other time, she did not feel half so foolish.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so now I can talk a bit more about why I wrote this. It's based on a discussion that Leeni and I had, about how fanfiction sex always works perfectly the first time. Or if it's not perfect, often they seem to... well, they seem to know what they're doing. We wanted something real. Something awkward. Something _dirty_. So that's where this story sprung from. (Its working title was "filthy smut".) Anyway, I know it's just short, but I've tried to play with a few things that I feel are lacking in every fandom ever. If you notice that any of the tropes I've played with are present in something you've written, please don't be offended! This is a very lighthearted treatment of sex and romance and is not meant to be taken seriously. :')
> 
> Anyway, do let me know what you think! I'd like to know if my aims succeeded. So leave a review!
> 
>  
> 
> (Also bonus points if you know where the title comes from. It should be a hint to the very tongue-in-cheek nature of this fic.)


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